


A Night Ride

by storm_queen



Category: The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls - Anton DiSclafani
Genre: F/F, Gen, Missing Scene, femslashy subtext
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storm_queen/pseuds/storm_queen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thea encounters Leona once after their first night ride together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Night Ride

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jouissant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/gifts).



That first night ride was all that was needed to encourage further covert disobedience. Nearly every night, I was taking advantage of the quietness in the camp, slipping from my bed to head to the barn. Naari grew to expect me, and perhaps it was my imagination, but she seemed nearly as anxious as I was to put aside the worries and restrictions and fly. The night air in the fall was cold and clear, a sharp contrast to Florida, and I had grown to love it.

It was some time before I encountered Leona again, with King already saddled and alert by the time I reached the barn. I should have stayed quiet and allowed her to make the first move, but I was emboldened by our previous conversation. The night had become my time, and mine alone, but first, it was something that Leona had shared with me.

“I thought I would see you here earlier,” I said. She watched me from her place beside King, eyes steady.

“I’ve had other concerns,” she said, and the rumors Sissy had been so quick to dismiss rose unbidden to my mind.

“I would have thought you’d want to be riding that much more,” I said. “Get out away from everyone else, without Mr. Albrecht talking to you and all the others watching.”

“You think I’m like you then?” Leona asked. She turned her head away from me, and her long near-white braid flicked a warning.

“I think you’re like my brother,” I said, although it was strange to talk about Sam to Leona. Sam, who was so much a part of me. Sam whom I had lost. I didn’t think I could say his name to her. “He likes animals better than people. Not horses, so much.” He was too afraid of falling, _not like Leona at all._ “But snakes, squirrels - anything, really.”

I had to stop then, swallowing hard. It was impossible to think of Sam here, and it had been a mistake to bring him up. I had lost ground in the face of Leona, and now I would have to regain that ground however I could, no matter how cruelly.

Leona’s back was still turned, but she was listening, so I pressed on. “No one’s ever thought he was cold though.”

Her only response was to leap lightly into the saddle, urging King forward. She had such a start that it would be nearly impossible for Naari to catch up, and I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to catch her.

But I wasn’t afraid of anything Leona could do to me, despite my indiscretion in mentioning Sam. I would have the upper hand, because I had shaken her, and I was always willing to ride harder, faster, dirtier than she was.

The wind bit at my face as I rode, following the echo of King’s hooves, but I didn’t care. The ride was itself an echo of that first night, and while Leona and I were not friends, exactly, I understood her in a way that the rest of the camp did not. She had not deserved my cruelty.

Leona stayed just ahead of me for the duration of the ride, keeping us on the trails where there was room for only one horse. Naari strained to pass King, but I kept her in check. We rode as though we were being hunted, all the way until I began to wonder at the time before Leona finally guided King’s head back home. We followed gladly.

We cooled the horses down in silence, walking them around the ring until their breaths returned to normal. I knew that when Leona and I dismounted and began to put the horses away, there would be no acknowledgment on her part that I had tried to expose her vulnerability. Leona could ignore pettiness and cutting remarks, but I had taken advantage of her weaknesses among the girls, and acted as though I did not understand her.

After putting Naari up, I leaned against the stall door, waiting for Leona to finish with King. I owed her an apology, surely, but to offer it would have been tantamount to repeating the offense. As far as Leona was concerned, we would pretend it had never happened. Suddenly I wanted to make it up to her, or to do something to break down her defenses in a way that wouldn’t make her hate me.

“I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t been able to ride at night,” I said instead. “There’s nothing like being on a horse.”

“You would have found something to do,” Leona said. She came around to the other side of King’s stall door, stood beside me. “You always do.”

Her hair shone brightly in the darkness of the barn, and I had to fight the impulse to reach out to it, to feel its fine smoothness in contrast to my own auburn waves. 

“You would never take the risk of being unable to ride,” I said, to take my mind off it, remembering her story about her sister.

“No,” Leona said. She reached up to stroke King’s neck.

“But… I’m sure you could find something else to do, if you had to,” I said. “Even if it wasn’t riding.”

I reached out then, not for her hair, but instead laid my hand lightly on hers. She was so tall, and her fingers were long and pale. Her skin was warm, and we stood there for a moment, without moving. I could hear my heart beating, and wondered if Leona could feel it.

“Maybe,” she said. She didn’t take her hand away from mine, but after a moment she shifted slightly in her navy boots. “It’s getting late, Thea.”

We should go, I understood, and I reluctantly moved away, ready to head back to my cabin. If we had had a little more time, if I had known just what to say, I thought I could have broken through Leona’s detached, poised exterior. I had almost made it.

“Leona?” I called softly, and she turned in acknowledgment. “Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” she said. It was the last time we would ride alone together.


End file.
